The Poetry Section: Richard Lawson, "Wiki"

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Today in the poetry section, a new poem by Richard Lawson.

Wiki

Too late at night, when I should have been sleeping,
I stumbled upon the suicide woods of Mt. Fuji,
the dark and quiet Aokigahara,
a place they once thought goblins lived.
Where they find dozens of lonely bodies
every year,
crumpled under signs reading
“Please call the police before you decide to end your life!”
“Please reconsider.”
Please don’t do this, unknown people yell,
trying to fight the hush of the woods,
the watchful white cone of the mountain
pointing a cold path to the sky.

There are other places like this,
chalk cliffs in England,
a twined metal bridge hanging over the Bosphorus,
the Golden Gate and Niagara Falls.
But those are places where we can disappear
into gravity,
throw ourselves out without implement,
without pill or sharp edge or loud booming fire.

In those woods, though, you are rooted and heavy.
I could not find any mention of how they actually do it,
as if they all just stood motionless for a moment
and let the trees and brown forest mat
slowly empty them out.
Maybe the stillness eventually stops their hearts,
a rare wind steals their breath,
and they simply fade and collapse,
the black bead of their pain
dislodging, rolling free.
They do not wash away,
they do not sink into nothing.
They stay.

That there is a forest like this,
a suicide woods,
is that strange kind of sadness
that tires your insides,
puts you to bed glad that
despite the rigor and boredom,
confusion and ache,
there are still faraway places
to which you would never travel.
Because they are cursed,
because they have been given too much
already.

They say that under the dirt
there are deposits of iron
that make compasses twirl.
They think that some people who die there
simply get lost.
They intended to walk back out,
to get in their cars,
to feel once again the tin hum in their bones
of Tokyo breathing.
But the woods held them back,
sent them in circles.

As I went to sleep, I imagined a few rueful ghosts
watching these turned-around people,
trying to guide them out with feathery hands.
Please, reconsider. Don’t go that way.
That is where they found me months later,
curled up and silent,
buried in snow.

Richard Lawson is a staff writer for Gawker.com and has had work appear in Out magazine and on The Awl. His poetry has previously been published in various Boston-based student literary magazines of record.

You may contact the editor of the section at poems@theawl.com.